Wednesday, May 21, 2008

How To Pirate

I walked into the stations hangar and boarded my Vexor class cruiser. She was a newly purchased and fit just a day ago. I received clearance from flight control to undock and slowly I piloted my cruiser into the blackness of space. I felt the need to stretch my space legs, so I put McFlippy into warp and arrived in orbit around one of the nearby planets of the Dal system. I powered up my directional scanner and did some sweeps of the area and found one... two... three ships on scan! It appears I had stumbled upon a fight because on my scanner I could detect two Stabber cruisers and one Vexor located at a nearby belt. Drones were deployed so I could only assume they were in combat with each other. My finger instinctively went to the warp button but I hesitated. My instincts and my sense of reason did not agree on this proposed course of action. In my first few months as a pilot I had learned that every time my instincts encouraged me to jump into an obviously bad and outnumbered situation, I would lose a ship for it. I could only assume that at least two of the three ships on scan were in a gang together but if I went for it now, I could land on top of them while they were already in combat and already damaged and unaware.

My hesitation did not last long. Instinct and blood thirst won over as I jammed the warp button and set a course to land several kilometers away from the center of the belt. I came in a small distance away from the fight and barely had time to survey the situation before the Vexor that was being attacked by the two Stabbers gave out and exploded. I turned on my microwarpdrive and began to approach the combat area. I targetted both remaining enemy cruisers and noticed that one was seriously damaged (although his partner was in almost perfect condition). I bore down on the injured cruiser first, locked him down with a web and scrambler and sent in the drones. They made quick work of his ship and now I was down to only one opponent. The pilot did me a favor by quickly flying into my web range where I was able to lock him down and unleash with my blasters and drones. His shields stood strong for a few moments and then faded and soon his ship melted too. I watched his pod warp away and sat for a moment reveling in my victory and the rush of adreneline that combat brings. Once I came back to my senses I looted the wrecks, scooped some stranded Warrior II drones and returned to the same station I had left only minutes before for repairs and to count my loot. The wrecks had contained some tech II modules that sold for several million isk and I kept the tech II drones for myself. All in all, a very good haul for just a few minutes of work. I posted the results of my first one versus multiple battle on my corporations kill board and undocked once again in search of more action...